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Iíve mentioned a few times that last nightís win over the Portland Trailblazers might
have been the best passing game Iíve seen Paul George ever have. Some
video:

The first three dishes shown are obviously excellent: the rise to shoot then dish to
George Hill at the rim; the two-handed overhead bounce pass to a cutting Ian
Mahinmi; the over-the-top entry to David West. Each led directly to an easy two
points.

The others are a little more subtle but also help illustrate his growth as a decision
maker. Because that is often what is more important as a passer than anything. We
oooh and aaahhh at the the highlight assists (like the one George threw to Mahinmi),
but even if youíre Jason Kidd, those types of finishes are few and far between. What
is more important is consistently making the right read and furthering the offenseís
advantage over the defense.

Thatís what we see in the rest of the video. Some of Georgeís passes donít even
lead to made buckets. But they all show the decisiveness that he plays with at his
best. Itís all instinctual. There is no dilly-dallying. He just sees a teammate who is
in a position to exploit the opponent and delivers a quick, accurate pass that allows
his teammate to get off a good shot.

The second-to-last dish (at the 1:13 mark) is the best illustration of Paulís growth as
a creator.

He starts the play on the weakside wing and makes a flex cut to the opposite block,
where he receives an entry pass while being guarded by Nic Batum. He catches a
little far out on the baseline...CONTINUE READING AT 8p9s

Roundball Mining Company:

Donít bogart that ball, McGee - Video Scouting Report

When JaVale McGee is on the court he uses a big chunk of Denverís possessions.
According to Basketball-Reference.com, among regular rotation players, he has the
highest usage rate on the team at 23.9 percent. Despite this, he also has the third
lowest assist rate at 3.6 percent. Kosta Koufos has the second lowest, 3.1 percent,
and Kenneth Faried the lowest assist rate, 2.0 percent. Naturally, all three of the
Nuggetsí main frontcourt players earn their keep around the rim, finishing plays and
putting back offensive boards, the big difference between McGee and the other two
is that he actually spends a significant amount of time with the ball in his hands.

Compare his usage rate with that of Koufos, lowest among rotation players at 12.4
percent, and Faried, third lowest at 18.6 percent. (A surprising side note here is that
Andre Miller is second lowest with a 17.6 percent usage rate thatís very modest
considering how much he handles the ball). In short, Kosta and Kenneth should be
given a free pass for their low assist rates, because the vast majority of the time,
when they get the ball, theyíre right there at the rim, and the best thing to do is
immediately put it in the basket.

This is not always the case with JaVale, who handles the ball in the post much
more than the other two. Examining the data from MySynergySports.com, we can
see that in many ways the shot selection of all three players is fairly similar across
the board. However, there are three play types which one player uses significantly
more than the other two:

Faried and Koufos take more shots off offensive rebounds and cuts, respectively,
than their frontcourt counterparts. Both of these play types, of course, necessitate
taking the ball to the rim. There is no place for passing there. McGee, however, has
a higher percentage of post-ups than the other two, a play from which he has the
option to pass or shoot.

But pass he does not. This season McGee is averaging less than half an assist per
game. More starkly put, in 13 games he has dished out a single lone assist in five
different games, and zero assists in the remaining eight games. Itís also worth
noting that three of his assists this season were made in transition, and just two
made in the flow of an offensive set (one from the top of the key, and one from
the low post). As a general rule, once JaVale gets the ball in position, he gets
tunnel vision straight to the basket, and everything else on the court fades out of
sight and out of mind.

All of this might not be as great a problem if it werenít for the fact that JaVale is
scoring a measly 0.5 points per possession on post-ups. Compare that with Marc
Gasolís 1.09, Tim Duncanís 0.99, or for that matter Andre Millerís 1.05 PPP from
the post, and itís easy to see that McGee still has a long way to go in getting a
handle on the moves he learned from Hakeem Olajuwon last summer and putting
them to positive effect.

In the meantime, as he finds his way through that process with the guidance of
the coaching staff, he needs to improve his own and his teamís efficiency by
making a concerted effort to dish it out more often from the post when the
occasion calls for it. This would result in fewer wasted possessions, as probable
missed shots got replaced by plays kept alive for more open, higher percentage
shots.

Perhaps just as importantly, if opposing defenses know that JaVale always shoots
and never dishes to cutters or shooters, then they are not kept honest. They can
collapse on McGee with double or even triple teams with no fear of getting punished
for leaving the perimeter unguarded. He can potentially earn himself better shots by
forcing defenses to respect his ability to find open shots for his teammates.

What follows are breakdowns of the five clips in the video at the bottom of this post.
(If you open the video up in Youtube, you can jump to any clip by clicking the times
in the description). All we can do is hope that the Nuggets film crew is working
closely with McGee to show him similar footage and stress the importance of the
kinds of points weíre making here.

Clip 1 Ė Missed running hook shot

This is one of those cases where McGee is so determined to make his move to the
basket that he completely fails to survey the court. The first time he gets the ball
on this possession, he does the right thing and passes out of the hard double team.
But the second time around, in his haste to take a shot, he doesnít recognize that
the defense has collapsed into the middle, and misses the opportunity to dish it out
to either Jordan Hamilton or Andre Iguodala, both of whom are wide open. As a
sidenote on this clip, Danilo Gallinari sets a very nice screen on Kevin Love to give
JaVale room to operate. It would be great to see him set these kinds of hard
screens more often on pick and rolls with the point guards.

Clip 2 Ė Missed short range jump shot

In this clip, Tiago Spillter does a good job of preventing JaVale from getting position,
holding him to the side of the key where he gets the ball from Andre Miller. McGee
makes a nice spin move to shake off Splitter, but similarly to clip 1, the defense has
sunk into the paint. There are two help defenders lurking nearby ready to close in on
JaVale, which they promptly do when he makes his move. affecting his shot and
most likely causing the miss...CONTINUE READING AT ROUNDBALL MINING COMPANY

Re: 12/7/2012 Game Thread #20: Pacers Vs. Nuggets

Anyone else a little nervous about the great defense falling off once Danny's back and the offense still taking time to get close to fixed? Not because "oh Danny doesn't defend" or anything, just because it'll be different groups on the floor than there has been and chemistry'll be off.

Re: 12/7/2012 Game Thread #20: Pacers Vs. Nuggets

Anyone else a little nervous about the great defense falling off once Danny's back and the offense still taking time to get close to fixed? Not because "oh Danny doesn't defend" or anything, just because it'll be different groups on the floor than there has been and chemistry'll be off.

As long as Danny doesn't take plays off I think there won't be any issues.

Re: 12/7/2012 Game Thread #20: Pacers Vs. Nuggets

Anyone else a little nervous about the great defense falling off once Danny's back and the offense still taking time to get close to fixed? Not because "oh Danny doesn't defend" or anything, just because it'll be different groups on the floor than there has been and chemistry'll be off.

I think it might be best to bring him off the bench this year. It really just depends on how he plays when he comes back.

Re: 12/7/2012 Game Thread #20: Pacers Vs. Nuggets

This game will be a great test. The Nuggets are a strong offensive team but when it comes to defensive rankings they rank a bit below average (17-22 range). They seem bad at defending the 3 point shot (28th in opponent 3P %) so that's something that we can take advantage of.

Overally, I think that we match better against the Western Conference teams because I believe that our D is the real deal. So, it will be a very interested test. It will either confirm my suspicions or make me search some more data about our D.

In any case, it will probably be nail-bitter. Needless to say, I'll be extremely happy with a W